When looking through the British council film archive I had many ideas for mash ups and parodies that would be funny and interesting for me to make and for people to watch.

One of my favourite films on the archive is ‘These Children are safe’ I enjoy this film as its one of very few that mentions the war. It shows the evacuation of children from the cities to the countryside and is a really sweet and interesting short film that is definitely worth the watch if you have a spare 20 minutes.

My main inspiration behind this video was the differences between culture then and now. I also showed the differences between children and students. The music and images I then swapped over from the videos which made a funny comparison between the two. I’m happy with how well the children dancing went with the house music that I placed over the top.

For the comparison video I used some footage I took at a RatBoy concert of people moshing and dancing which I thought would be funny to go alongside the audio of the children singing. I’m really happy with how this video turned out and if I had more time would have created more comparison/mashup videos from other sections of the ‘These children are safe’ film. Maybe for my final #VFL18 project a series of these types of videos would be a good idea?

So today I was properly introduced to my new project ‘View from Leicester’. I’m excited to start this project after hearing about previous years projects and what we are expected to do.

Today I was also introduced to the ‘British Council Film Collection‘ Which holds hundreds of old films made during the war. I watched a few of them today and found them actually very interesting to watch. I love old time classic British films, just the way they are created and how they come across to an audience is utterly unique. After watching a few I got ideas and took some interesting screenshots of certain shots until I had one that I thought I could link with our new project.

I then headed over to photoshop and using the colours already in the screenshot I added some text and the hashtag that we are using to link to the project. (#VFL18)

I like the way the screenshot makes it look as if the woman is looking at the text on the screen. I also like the way the modern writing contrasts with the vintage feel of the screen grab. This gave me an idea for my next piece. Watch this space..

I struggled to decide on a idea for my video assignment but after watching some old videos of mine I decided to stick to the one where you film your feet for the day.

I took inspirations from videos such as the man who took a picture of his face every day which has the same sped up and lots of images effect as my video has. I created my video throughout the day and recorded me with my friends at uni and walking around the uni buildings as well as going back to my flat, changing shoes and going out to lunch with my boyfriend. These videos I then sped up, cut down and pieced together the videos in Final Cut Pro to produce the final outcome. I then found some cheery music to go along with it on BenSound.com to make the video more interesting and look more put together. The video was then exported onto YouTube and is available to view here!

I enjoyed creating this video as it has a lot going on in just a short space of time and shows the story of my day in a different and more unusual way. I was even thinking of doing a similar video when I go to Hong Kong in March. I really love making memory videos, especially for trips that I go on. I edited a video together from my time in Amsterdam when me and my best friend went to visit our pals who live over there. We had a really great time and making the video was great fun and its so nice to have a way of remembering the trip whenever I want. When I go to Hong Kong in a few months I’m going to be making a similar video and also, after completing this video may also film my feet walking when I’m visiting all the amazing places in China.

This video was fun to make and look back on and has also given me some great ideas for future videos that I may make and upload.

When asked to make a gif using post- it notes I had many ideas. The first was an alien shooting a gun but that did’t go as I had intended and was much harder to draw the same several times in a row than I first thought. As someone who is known for being an awful drawer I don’t know what I expected the final outcome to be but even when I thought I had a decent final gif when I actually made it it was sub par and really not what I had envisioned. One thing I learnt to draw as a kid was a dog. My mum taught me how to draw two things as a kid and so I decided to use these in my gifs.

I used post its for my first gif as this was what was written in the assignment, I had to not use the first few I drew as they were even worse than the ones I did use (Above).

After I created the above GIF I realised that it wasn’t good enough and really not what I had in mind when starting this assignment. So I thought about why I had created and the inspirations behind it. So I chose to do the one other thing my mum had taught me to draw which is Giraffes. This time Instead of post-its I used my memo board so the too GIFs would look a bit different but ran with the idea of the drawing winking. This one turned out a lot better than the original.

Overall I think this assignment has made me realise that I’m in no way an artist. Although I would consider these my best drawings they’re by no means Picasso standard. I tried my best and thats the main thing, I do like the different textures I used to draw on and am happy that I actually managed to create the overall GIFs. If I was to attempt this assignment again I would think up a better way to make the drawing move such as the alien shooting a gun or laser but to attempt this I would have to either animate the GIF and draw it online. (Or just get better at drawing)

I’ve only become a Star Wars fan recently but my boyfriend has been the biggest fan for years. So purely due to peer pressure I’ve now seen every film and know more about the franchise than I ever wanted to know. In return for making me watch all the films I made my boyfriend watch some of my favourite films, the latest one being E.T. The fact he’d never seen the film shocked me and so as soon as I found that out we sat down together to watch it, and that was the idea behind my mash-up.

I took two very famous and iconic images from each film and thought about what I could turn them into. (Starters)(E.T)

Lucky for me both images are based around moons so the mash up was pretty clear in my mind. So out came photoshop and out came an image I’m actually rather proud of.

The Star Wars image does originally have 2 moons in the sky but I decided to stick with the one to draw attention to E.T. I also changed to sky to black as thats the background colour of the famous E.T picture. This may look strange but makes the mash up more obvious in my eyes and cooler to look at.

I got inspiration for this project from Cardboard Box Office who recreate famous movie scenes with their family and lots of cardboard in their living room. I love their blog and think they’re so creative. I also got inspiration from fan made posters that mix peoples favourite films together.

Comparing the images makes me think I could have made the black background more interesting but it needed to be black to fit in with the E.T part of the image. I also placed the moon higher in the sky than the other two as its much bigger and draws more attention at that point in the sky. This star wars scene is so iconic there are many other ways that you could manipulate it. Below are some examples of things I could have done.

Making the E.T moon the same size and place as the other moon makes the image look too out of place and it also makes it quite hard to see the silhouette thats over the moon making this way of editing it less effective.

I could have also made the edit more interesting my adding other characters into the scene. I used this one of Leonardo DiCaprio as this image is used in a lot of memes and makes the image a lot funnier and more interesting.

When I saw this assignment was to take pictures of a mundane object in different ways I took a while deciding what object to use. After a while I thought about the hat that my parents had got me for Christmas this year. Every year they seemed to set themselves the strange challenge of finding the weirdest hat they can and gifting it to me for christmas. This year I was blessed with a bobble hat with several colourful lamas on it. This one was arguably the best hat I owned or will ever own.

I then set myself a task. After a year a half of pranks being played on me by my flatmates (Hidden speakers in my room, cling filming my door shut and turning everything in my room upside down.. the list goes on) I decided to make this assignment a little bit more interesting for myself. Over the first few weeks back in the flat after christmas I put my beloved hat over, on and in random things of my flatmates in the flat and moved it about throughout the weeks. The reactions towards the hat were mixed, but these were the best results:

The hat stayed on my flatmates milk in the fridge for a few days and was moved from the kettle every time it was used (It was promptly but back on by me). It also stayed on the end of the ironing board for a few days too.. These days the hat sits on the edge of our TV. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, someone on the TV will wear the hat so for that reason I don’t think my flatmates mind my hat in its new home. When asked why I was annoying them in such a stupid way I didn’t tell them, best let them read this post or be confused while I continue to hide the hat in their cupboards and shelves throughout the year ahead.

Although their pranks this year annoyed me for a few hours at most, the hat annoyed them for 2 weeks so I feel like my mission was a success. Maybe next year the same will happen but with a new and improved hat?

As a media student I have a large interest in radio so the audio assignments were definitely something I’ve been looking forward to starting to create. This assignment in particular caught my eye as there are a lot of sounds in my life that I associate with certain things and I enjoy hearing. Obviously picking these sounds was quite hard but after taking my time and thinking about it I feel I came out with a collection of sounds that do truly make me happy. One morning I gave myself a challenge for the day, to record any sounds that make me smile throughout the day. This resulted in many recordings being taken throughout the day. (Many of which unfortunately didn’t make it onto the final cut)

I took the sounds and edited them all individually in Audition before importing them all into a multitrack and editing them more then but together as one piece of sound. I decided to edit them overlapping slightly to make it more interesting rather than just putting each sound in front of each other as this seemed boring to listen to.

As for all the sounds I used, heres a short explanation as to why I included each one:

Facebook video call sound – This sounds made the cut as this sound means I’m getting a video call from friends, family or boyfriend back home. Although this is a rather annoying sound, to me the sound is a nice thought about special people to me who are still back home.

The beeping the hob in my flat makes – This sound is a happy one for a very obvious reason. It remind me off food and all the times I’ve had to help my flatmates out as our hob is annoyingly hard to use.

Liquid being poured – As a student this sound also has an obvious meaning to me, the drinks and parties that have happened in the flat. When hearing liquid being poured it remind me of many good night with my friends.

Cereal being poured out – Another food related one, but cereal hold a special place in my heart as I have at least one bowl a day. Nothing for breakfast? Cereal. In a rush for lunch? Cereal. Not really that hungry but need to eat? Cereal. A well loved back up for me.

Door slamming – The sounds of my flats front door is one I have mixed feeling about. The reason I put it in this mix was because I relate the sound with my flatmates coming home. And although they may annoy me, its nice to have people around you and to know I’m not in the flat on my own. (Even when they wake me up by slamming the door at night)

Typing – Although the work at uni is hard and time consuming I do love the sound of myself typing up assignments, especially when I’m in the flow and typing quickly as I have so many ideas to get down.

Shower turning on – Another simple pleasure of mine is a nice hot shower. My friends always moan that we don’t have a bath here at uni but I’ve always been a shower person and think nothing can beat one after a long day.

People talking – My top favourite things abut being at uni is being surrounded by great people. As an only child it was hard to get used to being around people all the time but now going back home to silence is strange to me.

I loved creating and writing up this assignment. I think little project was something I’m glad I did as I enjoyed it so much. If you’re reading this and thinking about all the sounds that make you happy, go out and record them! Its like a mini 20 second time capsule.

Beetlejuice is maybe my favourite film. Its such a classic, funny film and I absolutely adore it. When I looked at other examples of minimalist posters I instantly began brainstorming ideas for a poster based off of my favourite film. My favourite scene in the movie is often being played on a loop in my head, which sounds mad I know, but it just cheers me up whenever I’m not feeling great.

My initial idea for this assignment was to have the word title of the movie and then the famous house from the film (Such as the image below) alone on a grey background.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get my idea to work out on photoshop so I decided to use beetlejuices iconic stripy black and white suit instead. The photo I used is actually one I took of a friend of mine at a party. (luckily for me he loves an extravagant outfit) I had to edit out the background and him wearing it as well as the light on the picture to make the white in the suit as crisp as I wanted. I then matched this white to the logo so they matched and stood out on the poster as much as each other. I used grey for the background colour as black or white would have blended in with the suit but because of the tone of the film I felt that a dark colour would be appropriate.

I was pleased with how it turned out despite not being able to create what I had originally planned on making. If anything the suit is probably more iconic to the film than the house and so the suit would probably be recognisable to a larger audience than perhaps the house would have been.
When I showed my mum (another huge fan of the film) she suggested that even the title probably wouldn’t be necessary to the poster as the suit itself is so iconic.

I however, was less convinced that everyone would understand the poster so decided that paired with the easily recognisable logo that the suit would be better off.

When I compared my poster to the original movie poster I noticed how cluttered the poster is. Although I love this poster almost as much as I love the film there is a lot going on in it.

Maybe a minimalist poster would be better as a teaser campaign such as the iconic new incredibles poster? Maybe a series of images like mine? One with the suit, one with the house and now with each character? There is a Harry Potter poster for the last film in the series that I absolutely adore. The poster doesn’t have the films title or any information apart from the date but the franchise is so famous you don’t need anything else. Its probably one of my favourite movie posters of all time, I remember seeing it for the first time and talking to my friend about how amazing it is that we didn’t need any information to know what film it is and why to get excited about the date. I definitely had this poster in mind when I created my Beetlejuice poster. Because both films are so famous the minimalist posters are probably just as affective.

However the more I look at the original poster the more I want to watch the film again and get the poster printed and framed. But that could just be my unnatural love for a film that was made before I was born talking.

Overall I loved creating the photo in photoshop and am proud of the finished product.

An assignment that really caught my eye and made me excited to work on was ‘We’re the real life Brady Bunch’ after completing the last image assignment ‘Family friendly billboard’ I instantly came up with an idea and ran with it.

To recreate this famous picture of The Brady Bunch I used photoshop.I liked this picture as every member of the family have their own individual square. This gives each individual their own personality while still ensuring they look like a group. When I created my own version of this I wanted to put my own spin on it. Me and my flat mates always joke that we’re a family so I thought I would use them as my own Brady Bunch.

When starting out I took pictures of all my flatmates individually, these would later be edited away from their background to be used in the final piece.

After cutting out the individual images I placed them on different colour background to make them stand out. I chose to do this as the original backgrounds are all the same shade of blue so to make mine more exciting I made each box a different colour. I then arranged all the boxes together like the original and made my own logo “The Crazy Bunch” Again, based on the original image but with my own personal spin.

After some more adjusting such as making the background white, which made the different colours stand out, I was happy with the finished product. If I was to complete this project again I would try and coordinate the subjects outfit colours to the individual box colours to make it look more put together as a piece so the person in the red box was wearing red or I’d mix the colours around, depending on what looked better.
Overall, I am pleased with how my original ideas progressed into the final picture and also linked with my last piece of assignment work.

I found it hard picking the assignments that I wanted to complete for this unit as the image based assignments always catch my eye. I wanted to pick something that would allow me to have fun and be creative.

I chose to create the family friendly billboard as I had a lot of ideas initially about what I wanted to put onto it.

When I read the assignment brief I instantly thought of this photo of me and my flatmates. It makes me laugh and we always joked about how it looked like it could be on a DVD cover for a sitcom about university life. On our last night out of first year we also joked that that night would be the last episode of the first season so would have to be an extra special and memorable night which is what gave me the idea for the billboard.

I used photoshop to create this image as I can use it well and was able to make the image how I wanted it.

I cut out the picture of us all and made it transparent so I could easily put it on a picture of a billboard I found online. I then found some cool fonts online and got them to say “The Grosvenors” which is the name of our student accommodation and what we agreed would be the name of our sitcom. I did think about changing the name to “Flat 14” as it would have been clearer what the show was about but this name looked better on the board. I chose to make it a netflix series as it meant I could fill it out more with branding and means that the whole of “year 1” of the show would be available, which is what I wrote on the board in the end.

I made the background colour white to make the picture and words as well as the logo stand out to the audience. I made the words all black on white so that it contrasted with the image and also made the red Netflix logo stand out as this branding would be important if this was a real billboard.

I really enjoyed creating this image as it was fun but also allowed me to be creative with an inside joke that me and my flatmates have. I think it came out well and I’m happy with the finished product.